1st grade at Janney is the year where students’ academic growth is most obvious.  Students enter 1st grade as kindergarteners who may still be learning letter sounds and early math concepts, and leave at the end the year reading and talking about texts at a higher level, computing numbers in math and solving math problems, and writing at a higher volume, even publishing books with multiple pages of texts and illustrations.

The 1st grade English Language Arts curriculum covers fiction and non-fiction reading and writing.  Students learn how to read informational texts including books and articles, get to know authors through an Author Study, apply the crafts of the authors into the students’ own writing, express their opinions through book reviews, autobiographies, small moments, and convey information through informative writing about a specific topic.

The math curriculum in 1st grade focuses on four critical areas as defined by the Common Core Standards:  understanding of addition, subtraction, and strategies for addition and subtraction; understanding of whole number relationships and place value; understanding of measurement and measuring lengths; and understanding of attributes of geometric shapes. Our teachers use multiple resources to engage students in a variety of activities and incorporate problem solving to build a solid understanding of these concepts.